everyone, it wasnât just me. No one liked him, not even the other writer people Mr Lawrence knew, Julian and all the others that still hung around himâdâyou know Julian Yuile? Heâs not a bad guy but not exciting, definitely not exciting, none of themâs exciting on the Trust. Itâs because he doesnât like himself, Val saidâthis is Mr Orr sheâs talking about, not Mr Yuile. Itâs because he doesnât like himself, she reckoned, thatâs why heâs the way he is, and I thought about that for a while. Itâs because heâs frightened of liking you, she told me, thatâs also in the mix. And because heâs frightened you might like him back. Not much chance of that, I told her. Sheâs a good woman, Val, sometimes I think it was a shame she was just a little bit outside my target area for taking old Jumbo for a walk.
But anyway, getting a bit off the topic here, arenât I? Telling you about old Either-Or trying to wind my clock, but after Iâd thought about it for a while it seemed to me he was actually trying to say something else about me and this Thomas Hamilton, and what he was trying to say was the same thing Iâve been trying to say to you just now, when it seemed like I was putting Mr Lawrence on like clothes. I wouldnât mind talking to you about it sometime when youâre free, because itâs niggling at me. Itâs true, what old Either-Or says is true, you do start thinking different things when you get caught up with people like that, and I donât think itâs always for the better. I donât think writers are all-that-happy people, to tell you the truth, not as far as Iâve seen, anyway. I donât know why they do it, writing I mean, it doesnât seem to make them any happier. Nothing personal, no offence intended. I donât
Wednesday afternoon, and here I am, limping my car over judder bars and into a little world of quadrangles and cloisters and tight-ribbed stone staircases. Years ago, when every other college of our local university departed to new accommodation in the north-western suburbs, the College of Arts remained here in the city, in charming mock-Gothic buildings first thrown up nearly a hundred years before. Its desks are still gouged with the names of young scholars long since rooted out of their tabernacles.
The English Department is in the old Physics building here in this second quadrangle, near a large Japanese gingko tree that flowers magnificently in spring and emits a terrible stench in autumn. You can imagine what Raymond made of something like that âhis fiction is full of gingkos that drop their noisome seed at inopportune moments. The Raymond Lawrence School for the Creative Arts is next to the English department, in a building now almost completely repaired following the events of October 2007. Itâs scheduled to re-open next month.
Ah, yes, the Raymond Lawrence School of Creative Writingâfocus of the greatest arguments Raymond and I ever had. Of course the others in the Trust were involved, too, even though that body had yet to be formally established at the time Iâm talking about: we were his friends, in effect his family, even though not all of us especially liked one anotherâand most like a family in that, you might say.
But we were united in wanting to commemorate the great man tangibly: so that, when the Registrar of the University here contacted us a dozen years ago on behalf of the Universityâs council to sound out the possibility of setting the School up in Raymondâs name, we leapt, collectively, at the opportunity. What better thought? Even the suggestion that we might join the other funders of the project, a wealthy local law firm, seemed acceptable: at that stage Raymondâs sales were at high tide and there was money elsewhere and of course from the Prize itself, though the family farm at Springfield wasâand still
But anyway, getting a bit off the topic here, arenât I? Telling you about old Either-Or trying to wind my clock, but after Iâd thought about it for a while it seemed to me he was actually trying to say something else about me and this Thomas Hamilton, and what he was trying to say was the same thing Iâve been trying to say to you just now, when it seemed like I was putting Mr Lawrence on like clothes. I wouldnât mind talking to you about it sometime when youâre free, because itâs niggling at me. Itâs true, what old Either-Or says is true, you do start thinking different things when you get caught up with people like that, and I donât think itâs always for the better. I donât think writers are all-that-happy people, to tell you the truth, not as far as Iâve seen, anyway. I donât know why they do it, writing I mean, it doesnât seem to make them any happier. Nothing personal, no offence intended. I donât
Wednesday afternoon, and here I am, limping my car over judder bars and into a little world of quadrangles and cloisters and tight-ribbed stone staircases. Years ago, when every other college of our local university departed to new accommodation in the north-western suburbs, the College of Arts remained here in the city, in charming mock-Gothic buildings first thrown up nearly a hundred years before. Its desks are still gouged with the names of young scholars long since rooted out of their tabernacles.
The English Department is in the old Physics building here in this second quadrangle, near a large Japanese gingko tree that flowers magnificently in spring and emits a terrible stench in autumn. You can imagine what Raymond made of something like that âhis fiction is full of gingkos that drop their noisome seed at inopportune moments. The Raymond Lawrence School for the Creative Arts is next to the English department, in a building now almost completely repaired following the events of October 2007. Itâs scheduled to re-open next month.
Ah, yes, the Raymond Lawrence School of Creative Writingâfocus of the greatest arguments Raymond and I ever had. Of course the others in the Trust were involved, too, even though that body had yet to be formally established at the time Iâm talking about: we were his friends, in effect his family, even though not all of us especially liked one anotherâand most like a family in that, you might say.
But we were united in wanting to commemorate the great man tangibly: so that, when the Registrar of the University here contacted us a dozen years ago on behalf of the Universityâs council to sound out the possibility of setting the School up in Raymondâs name, we leapt, collectively, at the opportunity. What better thought? Even the suggestion that we might join the other funders of the project, a wealthy local law firm, seemed acceptable: at that stage Raymondâs sales were at high tide and there was money elsewhere and of course from the Prize itself, though the family farm at Springfield wasâand still
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